Leo McKinstry
The Runway’s End
When the brilliant American general David Petraeus took charge of the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq in 2007, he issued a manual to his tactical commanders setting out the detailed plans for this surge. Tellingly, the US air force played little part in his scheme. Petraeus’s manual relegated airpower to an appendix that only took up five pages out of almost 2,000. The subsequent success of the operation, against all predictions, appeared to justify Petraeus’s wisdom in treating America’s air force almost as an irrelevance.
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'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency